How to sell technical debt to the business
How do you find budget for technical projects that are hard to align with ROI?
Thoughtful engineers understand the value of managing technical debt, but translating this value to non-engineers, notably, your business counterparts controlling the budget, is a challenge worth exploring.
Resolving technical debt is often seen as contrary to forward progress. And honestly, sometimes it is. Understanding when to work on it, who works on it, how much to tackle, and when to move on can be challenging to align your technical team on, nevermind communicating it to your CFO or CEO.
To guide you in learning strategies behind selling technical debt projects to your business counterparts, we’ve organized an expert panel for a live online event.
In this panel we’ll discuss:
- how and when to frame technical debt as either a risk to business or an opportunity for growth
- how to leverage Engineering KPI's to make a better case for tackling technical debt
- how technical debt is viewed within organizations of various structures and sizes
- personal stories about tackling technical debt from tech leaders who have built strong, trust-based relationships with their CFO's and CEO's
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Maria Loughlin, VP Engineering, Toast
Maria is a software executive with a passion for harnessing technology to solve important real-world problems. She has experienced 25 years of success and lessons-learned through delivering great products, scaling high-performing teams, and driving technology transformations. At Toast, Maria’s current passion is delivering innovation that helps restaurants to thrive.
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Neil Bhay, VP Technology, TuneCore
Neil is an accomplished technology leader with nearly 20 years of experience building and leading teams in web and emerging platforms at the likes of HBO and Viacom. Neil now inspires teams & stakeholders at TuneCore.com, creating cutting-edge consumer experiences in the music technology space.
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Jim Studer, CIO, Univision
For 14 years, Jim held the CIO role at Univision Communications (UVN). As founder of IT Services at the Spanish Language Media leader, his arrival started the effort to overcome a >20-year deficit in IT capabilities. Within 5 years and with major C-Suite support, Univision closed the IT gap with their competitors (NBC, ABC et al). Prior to Univision, he spent 23 years in IT and Finance at GE.
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Susan Dikramanjian, Director of Engineering, John Hancock
Passionate about driving business value through technology, Susan’s move from software engineer to engineering management was a natural progression. She has led engineering teams at small startups as well as mid-sized and large companies including Brainshark, Health Edge, and Dassault Systemes.